Making sense of our ongoing social catastrophe. (An Orthosphere blog.)

December 30, 2011

The Great Depression: Then and Now

The tipping point for economic collapse is coming up quickly, perhaps as early as next year. We've been through this sort of mess once before, but the America of 2012 is a vastly different nation than was the America of 1929. Let's take a few moments to examine these differences.

First, while we're heading for depression, the coming one will be markedly more severe. GDP contracted a total of 30% in four years; the necessary correction to bring GDP in line with our present levels of economic output will be more on the order of 50%.

This time, public distrust, suspicion, and contempt of the American government is at an all-time high.

This time, our ethnic minorities are considerably more numerous, more radicalized, and more violent, to the point that they are constantly shooting people over sneakers, getting arrested for losing their minds in fast-food restaurants, and stabbing their coworkers with screwdrivers.

This time, virtually no one is a farmer or even knows how to farm (back then, virtually everyone was capable of at least subsistence farming).

This time, society is in thrall to an ideology that regards pain and suffering as the worst possible evil and suicide as a perfectly valid means of avoiding such.

This time, dependence on the government is already at a record high and there will be no money left to help out the poor.

This time, there are clear villains -- the financial-political complex.

This time, the American identity as such is considerably weakened after decades of propositional-nation nonsense, mass immigration, and political correctness.

This time, we share our porous southern border with a violent narco-state (in fairness, this isn't much worse than the violent atheistic despotism we shared it with back in the 20's).